JOHN STOW (also STOWE; 1524/25 – 5 April 1605) was an English
historian and antiquarian , best known for his Survey of London (1598;
second edition 1603).

CONTENTS

* 1 Life

* 2 Works

* 2.1 Survey of London

* 3 Later years and death
* 4 Commemoration

* 5 References

* 5.1 Edition
* 5.2 Further reading

* 6 External links

LIFE

John StowJohn Stow was born in about 1525 in the City parish of St Michael,
Cornhill , then at the heart of London's metropolis. His father,
Thomas Stow, was a tallow chandler . Thomas Stow is recorded as paying
rent of 6s 8d per year for the family dwelling, and as a youth Stow
would fetch milk every morning from a farm on the land nearby to the
east owned by the Minoresses of the Convent of St. Clare .

Stow did not take up his father's trade of tallow chandlery , instead
becoming an apprentice, and in 1547 a freeman , of the Merchant
Taylors\' Company , by which stage he had set up business in premises
close to
AldgateAldgate Well , close to
Leadenhall StreetLeadenhall Street and Fenchurch
Street .

In about 1560 he started upon his major work, the Survey of London.
His antiquarian interests attracted suspicion from the ecclesiastical
authorities as a person "with many dangerous and superstitious books
in his possession", and in February 1569 his house was searched. An
inventory was made of all the books at his home, especially those "in
defence of papistry", but he was able to satisfy his interrogators as
to the soundness of his
ProtestantismProtestantism . A second attempt to
incriminate him was made in 1570 also without success.

Stow made keen acquaintance of the leading antiquarians of his time,
including
William CamdenWilliam Camden , before in 1561 producing his first work,
The woorkes of Geffrey
ChaucerChaucer , newly printed with divers additions
whiche were never in printe before. This was followed in 1565 by his
Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles which was reprinted several times,
with slight variations, during his lifetime. Grenville\'s Library is
believed to have had a first-edition of Stow's Summarie and the
British LibraryBritish Library holds copies of his editions of 1567, 1573, 1590, 1598
and 1604. Stow's 1567 edition makes mention in its frontispiece of a
rival publication by
Richard Grafton , a dispute which later
magnified.

In 1580, Stow published his Annales, or a Generale Chronicle of
England from Brute until the present yeare of Christ 1580; reprinted
in 1592, 1601 and 1605, the last being continued to 26 March 1605, or
within ten days of his death. Editions "amended" by Edmund Howes
appeared in 1615 and 1631.

Under
ArchbishopArchbishopMatthew ParkerMatthew Parker 's patronage, Stow was persuaded to
produce a version of Flores historiarum by "
Matthew of Westminster "
published in 1567, then the Chronicle of
Matthew ParisMatthew Paris in 1571, and
the Historia brevis of
Thomas Walsingham in 1574. In the Chronicle of
England 1590 Stow writes: "To The Honorable Sir John Hart, Lord Maior.
The Chronicle written before that nothing is perfect the first time,
and that it is incident to mankinde to erre and slip sometimes, but
the point of fantatical fooles to preserve and continue in their
errors."

At the request of
ArchbishopArchbishop Parker he compiled a "farre larger
volume", a history of Britain, but circumstances were unfavourable to
its publication and the manuscript was lost. Additions to the
previously published works of
ChaucerChaucer were twice made through Stow's
"own painful labours" in the edition of 1561, referred to above, and
also in 1597. A number of Stow's manuscripts are in the Harley
Collection in the
British LibraryBritish Library . Some are in Lambeth Palace Library
(MS 306), and were published in 1880 by the
Camden Society , edited by
James Gairdner , as Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, with
Historical Memoranda by John Stowe the Antiquary, and Contemporary
Notes of Occurrences written by him.

SURVEY OF LONDON

The work for which Stow is best known is his Survey of London
(original spelling: A Survay of London), published in 1598, which is
of unique value for its detailed account of the buildings, social
conditions and customs of London in the time of Queen Elizabeth I . He
published a second revised edition in 1603. Following his death, a
third edition, with additions by
Anthony Munday appeared in 1618; a
fourth by Munday and
Humfrey Dyson in 1633; a fifth with interpolated
amendments by
John Strype in 1720; and a sixth by the same editor in
1754. The edition of 1598 was reprinted, edited by William John Thoms
, in 1842, in 1846, and (with illustrations) in 1876. An edition based
on that of 1598, edited by
Henry MorleyHenry Morley , was published in 1889, and
has been reprinted on several occasions since.

A critical edition , based on that of 1603 and edited in two volumes
by C. L. Kingsford , was published in 1908, and republished with
additional notes in 1927. This remains the standard scholarly edition.
A more popular single-volume edition was published in Everyman\'s
Library , with an introduction by H. B. Wheatley , in 1912 (revised
edition 1956), and has been frequently reprinted. Church of St
Andrew Undershaft

LATER YEARS AND DEATH

Stow's literary efforts did not prove very remunerative, but he
accepted his relative poverty with cheerful spirit:
Ben JonsonBen Jonson relates
once walking with him when Stow jocularly asked two mendicant cripples
"what they would have to take him to their order". From 1579 he was in
receipt of a pension of £4 per annum from the Merchant Taylors'
Company; and in 1590 he petitioned the
Court of Aldermen for admission
to the Freedom of the
City of LondonCity of London , in order to reduce his
expenses. In about the 1590s,
William CamdenWilliam Camden commissioned Stow to
transcribe six autograph notebooks of John Leland in exchange for a
life annuity of £8: this was probably (in part) a charitable gesture
towards an old but impoverished friend. In March 1604 King James I
authorised Stow and his associates to collect "amongst our loving
subjects their voluntary contributions and 'kind gratuities'", and
himself began "the largesse for the example of others". Whilst such
royal approval was welcome it reaped dividend too slowly for Stow to
enjoy any substantial benefit during his lifetime.

Stow's widow commissioned a mural monument to him in the church, made
of Derbyshire marble and alabaster. The work has been tentatively
attributed to Nicholas Johnson . It includes an effigy of Stow,
which was originally coloured: he is represented seated at a desk,
writing in a book (probably the revision of his Annals, which he
brought down to only ten days before his death), and flanked by other
books. Above him is the motto, based on a phrase of Pliny the Younger
, Aut scribenda agere, aut legenda scribere (" either to do things
that are worth writing about, or to write things that are worth
reading about"). The figure holds a real quill pen , in a manner
similar to the effigy of William Shakespeare at
Stratford-upon-AvonStratford-upon-Avon :
the latter monument has been attributed, on equally tentative grounds,
to Nicholas Johnson's brother, Gerard .

In acknowledgement of Stow's continuing reputation as the founding
father of London history, the quill held by his effigy has been
periodically renewed. The renewal is mentioned as taking place
"annually" in 1828; and, although the custom may later have fallen
into abeyance, it was revived following the monument's restoration by
the Merchant Taylors\' Company in 1905. In 1924, the ceremony was
incorporated into a special church service, with an address by a
London historian; and this service continued to be held annually every
April until 1991, including the years of the
Second World WarSecond World War . No
services could be held in 1992 or 1993 because of damage to the church
caused by the Baltic Exchange bomb of 1992. The service was revived in
1994, but since 1996 has been held only once every three years. The
services are jointly sponsored by the
Merchant Taylors' Company and
the
London & Middlesex Archaeological Society , and the quill supplied
by the London ">